


send the dark underneath

by archetypically



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Gamora is going to fuck shit up, Gen, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Soul world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 01:42:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14727582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archetypically/pseuds/archetypically
Summary: Everything, he’d told her, eyes filled with the kind of emotion that a being like him should not have. (The lingering image makes her sick.) It had cost him everything.He doesn’t know the meaning of that, couldn’tpossiblyknow the meaning of that, not when all he’s ever done is use others, torture and kill them, for his own gain. But in that moment, in a cold expanse under a paradoxically orange sky, she resolves that he will.Somehow, he will. And if she still exists in some form – still breathes, still thinks, stillfeels– she will find a way to see it.





	send the dark underneath

Her _father_ (the word is laced with venom in her mind) turns his back and walks away toward a victory that is not his to claim.

Everything, he’d told her, eyes filled with the kind of emotion that a being like him should not have. (The lingering image makes her sick.) It had cost him everything.

He doesn’t know the meaning of that, couldn’t _possibly_ know the meaning of that, not when all he’s ever done is use others, torture and kill them, for his own gain. But in that moment, in a cold expanse under a paradoxically orange sky, she resolves that he will.

Somehow, he will. And if she still exists in some form – still breathes, still thinks, still _feels_ – she will find a way to see it.

The air shifts around her, blowing strands of hair across her face, and it’s strange, because in all the time she’s been here – seconds, hours, days – there’s only been a quiet, empty stillness at every turn. A rush of warmth, the first she’s felt since she was still alive, grazes her skin, palpable and _real_ , before fading away again.

She feels a familiar weight on her hip then, one in exact proportion to her Godslayer, and when she reaches a hand toward it, reflexively, she finds that the hand is no longer small.

_Reality can be whatever I want it to be_ , is a thought that floats into her mind, one that carries a twinge of satisfaction and that, for a few seconds, brings the barest traces of a smile to her mouth. She stands, taller in more ways than one, and the last facsimile of childhood memory is gone.

_Reality can be whatever I want it to be._

She walks, and though the water splashes at her feet as she does, it never seeps into her boots. The landscape never changes, but she keeps walking, because something is drawing her forward - a feeling, one that tells her that whatever she finds will change everything. It’s not logical, but it doesn’t have to be; she’s learned that feelings can, _should_ be trusted, that thinking otherwise gives _him_ exactly what he wants.

She walks, and she doesn’t know how long she does - seconds, hours, maybe a whole day - before she finally encounters something. Or, rather, someone; a figure, just a vague form at first, but when its identity becomes clear, she freezes in her steps.

The profile is one that she hasn’t seen outside of dreams in more than twenty years, but is nevertheless unmistakable. The dress is traditional Zehoberei.

Her chest tightens. A breath becomes trapped in her throat.

The figure turns, and –

“Mother?”

Her form is no longer small, but her voice is.

With an almost imperceptible shake of a head, the figure in front of her reveals a truth that she had somehow already known, even before the word had escaped her. She glances down at the water, and does her best to swallow down a mass of an emotion that sticks in her throat nonetheless.

The water ripples away from her.

“Come,” says her (not-) mother, and out of the corner of her eye, she sees a (not-) hand outstretched toward her. “It isn’t over.”

_It isn’t over_ ; she’d known that, too, a certainty as solid as the feeling that when she’d died, she hadn’t truly been alone, because the ones she loves would never leave her.

She lifts her eyes, and with a steady breath and a steady grip, she accepts.

**Author's Note:**

> i won't get this movie out of my head anytime soon; as always, feel free to scream with me [on tumblr](http://stooperman.tumblr.com/)


End file.
